A Moderately Difficult Love (of Italo Calvino)

“It was, as usual, a mistake of my father’s. My father does not understand the things that divide people...I’m too well aware of the difficulties of communication between human beings, and sense at every minute the gulfs that separate the classes, the abysses that politeness opens up under me”.

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I recently finished Difficult Loves (1949) by Italo Calvino and I think the sentiment in the excerpt above might be more than a little biographical. Did you know that Calvino referred to his first name as “belligerently nationalist”? (It was). He lived a life of relative privilege and was acutely (and perhaps painfully) aware of it.

The majority of the book is composed of short stories in 3 parts: Riviera Stories, War Stories, and Post-War Stories circa WWII. They generally take place in the Italian countryside, and while overtly about mundane events or random interactions, these really felt like stories about the way things were, the way things are, the way things will be.

I liked the weird settings, the ugly ethics, the way his stories seem like moments in time or character cross sections rather than linear plots. I’m not sure I would say these stories form some kind of mosaic of overall meaning, per se - if so, I’m not yet sure what the big picture is tbh - but it was disorienting and thought provoking and wonderfully postmodern.

The last quarter of the book was my favourite: "Stories of Love and Loneliness". This section is all about adventure, and what that looks like for a soldier, a reader, a near-sighted man, a poet. My personal favourite is “The Adventure of a Photographer”, which essentially forecasts Instagram and asks what is more insane - to live a life worthy of photographing or simply to pretend that you do. Thanks for that Calvino. It seemed fitting that I write and post this here, now, then.

I enjoyed this a 7.75/10. Some stories were a 10, but I did find some were dry. All were brilliant.

Recommend if you’re already a fan of his work (I’m looking at you, fans of If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller) and if you want something that’s deep but in a nearly unnoticeable and murky way. I would not recommend if you’re a big fan of plot.